


House Party Protocol

by antigrav_vector



Series: Like trying to stop an avalanche [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel, Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Fluff, Barebacking, Biting, Comic Book Science, Cuddles, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Explicit Consent, Extremis, F/F, F/M, Femslash, Foursome, Foursome - F/F/M/M, Gals being pals, Het Sex, Insecurity, Making Out, Marking, Masturbation, Mild Come Play, Moresomes, Multi, Open Relationships, Oral Sex, POV Switches, Poly Relationships, Possessiveness, Relationship Negotiation, Scratching, Threesome, Threesome - F/F/M, far more plot than intended
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-19
Updated: 2016-01-29
Packaged: 2018-05-15 01:18:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 18,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5766445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antigrav_vector/pseuds/antigrav_vector
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What should you do when one of your close friends gets caught in a bombing, you're presumed dead, and your girlfriend is kidnapped? ... well, probably not this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> With thanks to my lovely beta reader, [lil_1337](http://archiveofourown.org/users/lil_1337/)

When the first detonation nearly killed Happy, Tony freaked out. Trying to fight a terrorist was nothing new to him; he'd been doing just that for years in his attempts to wipe out the caches of the weapons Stane had illegally sold. But this, someone powerful enough to strike at his inner circle and melt away like mist in the sun... this was frightening, and Tony couldn't seem to shake the emotions that gnawed at him constantly; the guilt that Happy had gotten hurt, the fear that Pepper was next, the anger over his inability to make any progress in tracking down the asshole who'd attacked them...

And the broadcasts that were obvious taunts weren't helping his mood.

Pepper had tried to distract him, and Natasha had tried to help him, but in the end, neither succeeded.

He knew that Natasha had gotten Pepper out of the house when the Mandarin had blown it up, and that JARVIS had managed to get off an emergency call to the rest of the team. That was what mattered.

\------

The next time he saw Natasha he was in Rose Hill, Tennessee. She'd come charging into the fight he'd been having with the two ridiculously overpowered superhumans, and brought Clint with her. It had still taken a lot more effort to take down the pair of his opponents than it should have. Tony had been limited to what he could come up with on the spot, unable to use his suit.

Once Clint and Natasha had joined the fight, the whole thing was brought under control fairly quickly. Clint stood guard over the two superhumans while SHIELD scrambled someone to pick them up, and Natasha got Tony under cover.

"Stark," she greeted him like she always did when they were in public or anywhere they might be overheard, "are you alright?"

"I'll live," he replied as he cautiously tested the range of movement of his arms. "Got some good bruises, and I think I pulled something in my lower back. Nothing a long hot soak won't cure."

"Good. Everyone in the media thinks you're dead, and about half of your house is in the ocean."

"Actually. How did you find me? Does Pepper know?"

Natasha gave him a level look that held a hint of exasperation. "Rogers and Clint were actually in New York at the right time to find out from more sources than just the news what happened to Happy and the Malibu house. JARVIS called me and let me know where you were headed, so I grabbed Clint. Cap is trying to get a hold of Thor and Banner. Clint and I are here to make sure you stay dead. You haven't been overly careful about keeping that cover." Her expression went focused, as she continued. "We also have a problem."

"Well, it's not like I can just do the chameleon thing like you or Barton," Tony retorted. "I was doing okay."

Rather than argue, Natasha changed tacks, and this time her words got his attention immediately. "Stark, focus. Pepper's been taken by a group of people that had powers a lot like the ones we just took on."

\------

Looking back on the three days that followed was almost enough to make Tony want to fall into bed and sleep for a week.

Discovering that the mastermind behind everything had been Killian had been bad enough. Discovering that Killian had injected Pepper with his Extremis virus had been enough to make Tony want to destroy everything Killian had ever built and salt the ground.

The only thing stopping him was the sure knowledge that he needed Extremis and its blueprints to cure Pepper.

She had been almost incandescent during that last showdown on the tanker, taking out several of the enemies that had been about to converge on Tony, who'd been forced to abandon his suit. The other Avengers had been too far away to help at the time. And now, he couldn't seem to stop thinking about it. On some deeply buried level he might never admit to, Tony almost wanted to find a way to let her keep Extremis. Just... without the danger of explosions.

He knew Pepper would never go for it, though. She needed that slice of normality in her life to help her keep herself stable and grounded. She really wasn't cut out for superheroing, and he knew it.

But that gave him an idea. Pepper was going to be unhappy with him for a while, but it would be worth it if he could find a way to rid himself of the reactor and fix his heart in the process.

Luckily, he had enough resources at his fingertips to stave off the need for sleep, now that he was back in New York, he mused, taking another slug from the mug of coffee Butterfingers had brought him. He would need his wits about him if he wanted to redesign Extremis for himself.

Rhodey had descended on him the moment he'd stumbled out of the elevator and into the penthouse with Pepper and Natasha and followed him down to the workshop. He'd been watching the whole mess on the news, and doing what he could to limit the military's interference. Had seen Tony blow up his suits on national television. And naturally decided he needed to come do some yelling.

Tony had turned to him at about the point where he'd started yelling about how leaving himself defenseless was a terrible idea, and given his best friend a Look. "Platypus, did you really think that was all of the suits?"

"You kept one, didn't you. Of course you did. Damn it, Tony, you're supposed to _tell_ me about these things. Before you drop a bomb on the National News, preferably."

Tony huffed, amused, and tuned him back out as Rhodey started scolding him about what boiled down to a complaint that 'everybody else got to help, why wasn't I invited'.

Eventually, Rhodey had left, lured out of the workshop by Pepper with the promise of dinner, and mollified that Tony wasn't joining them by Pepper's promise to make sure he ate. Tony didn't much care, really, beyond knowing that his little makeshift family was all here or recovering in safe locations. Clint had somehow managed to break an ankle, and Steve had picked up some bad burns from one of the fire breathing Extremis enhanciles. Bruce had decided to stay out of the fight, rather than risk damaging the tanker too much, and both Natasha and Thor had somehow come out of things without a scratch. Happy would need more time to get back on his feet. And Pepper… 

Rather than worry about it, he settled in to deal with Extremis. Pepper and Natasha had each other to cling to, and he had a problem to solve that was actually kind of urgent.

\------

A long sixteen hours later, Tony was pretty sure he had a solution that worked. JARVIS' simulations had converged to stable values for all the operational variables on the last three iterations, and Euler's rigidity algorithm was returning safe values. 

When Pepper showed up to pry him out of the workshop, an hour later, Tony didn't let her. Not immediately.

"Hey, no, Pep, listen," he started.

"Tony, come on, you need to eat and sleep like everyone else." Pepper crossed her arms over her chest, and Tony gave her an appreciative once over before he got to the point.

"Pep, seriously, give me a minute."

She raised an eloquent eyebrow at him, but conceded the point. "Fine. One minute. Go."

"J?" Tony turned to the holographic display behind him, and JARVIS obligingly projected their result on it, quadruple checked and rechecked one more time. "We're pretty sure we have a fix for Extremis worked out. If you want, we can start synthesis tonight and have it ready to go in the morning."

Pepper's eyes widened. "You're serious?"

"Yep," Tony nodded, a slightly self-satisfied smirk tugging at his lips. He was damn good at what he did, and knew it, but it was always nice to impress Pepper. "Based on our projections it should take about six hours to fully take effect post-injection, and then the components of the Extremis virus in your system should clear out over time just like a normal viral infection. We'll just have to keep an eye on the side-effects."

"Which are...?"

"Low-grade fever, achy joints, headache... basically it'll feel like a mild cold." Tony watched her carefully. "We can probably get it to the point where you won't even feel that much, but it would take another week, minimum."

"Then I'll deal with the side effects." Pepper's expression twisted oddly. "It'll be a relief to have it dealt with."

"Right. JARVIS, you know what to do."

The AI agreed readily; Tony was fairly sure he wanted Pepper back to normal as much as the rest of them, and for many of the same reasons. "Formulation is initiated, sir. Might I suggest you follow Ms. Potts' recommendations?"

"He's right, Tony," Pepper caught at his arm and pulled him away from the projection of the results. "We both need to eat and sleep."

"Okay, okay." Tony agreed, but only because he'd finished what needed finishing. He could work on the version he intended to take himself after Pepper was okay again.

\------

He'd gone to sleep wrapped around Pepper, just happy to have her next to him again after the AIM and Mandarin debacles, and woke to find that Natasha had joined them sometime in the night without disturbing either of them.

Seeing that she was awake, Tony rolled his eyes. Had she been keeping watch? He had JARVIS for that.

Natasha rolled her eyes back at him, and settled in closer to Pepper, tucked against her other side.

Neither of them moved or spoke until Pepper woke up, stretching without opening her eyes, and smiling to find that there was an additional warm body at her back. "'Morning," she yawned.

"Good morning," Natasha replied in kind, nuzzling into the back of Pepper's neck.

Tony watched them for a few seconds before he leaned in for a kiss. To his mild surprise, it was Natasha who leaned up to meet him and Pepper watched.

When the kiss broke, Tony leaned back and let himself fall back onto his pillow. "How we doing on that synthesis, JARVIS?"

"The synthesis is finished, and quality testing is underway. The results should be ready in approximately fifteen minutes."

Natasha caught his eyes and held them. "Synthesis?"

Pepper smiled, and there was more than a hint of relief in it. "Tony and JARVIS found a way to get rid of Extremis."

Natasha nodded. "Good." She leaned back a little ways and addressed the AI. "Let me know when things are set in motion."

"Very well, Ms. Romanov," JARVIS replied. 

"Now," she turned back to Pepper. "I'd say some breakfast is probably a good idea."

Tony muffled a yawn and stood. "Coffee."

The three of them dressed and separately made their way down to the communal kitchen on the lower penthouse floor. Several of the other Avengers had moved in piecemeal over the course of the last year, so there were voices to be heard, and the area smelled of food. It made Natasha smile, and Tony found he kind of liked that fact. At the moment it was only Clint and Steve that were in residence full time, though. Bruce still traveled extensively, unable to settle down easily after so long on the road despite enjoying his new lab to the hilt, and Thor spent a lot of time in New Mexico with his girlfriend.

Clint, still in his purple pyjamas, was leaning against the island and drinking orange juice straight out of the carton. It was a bad habit they hadn't managed to train him out of yet. Steve was at the stove frying bacon. A carton of eggs waited on the counter to his right. Both of them looked up when Natasha and Tony walked in.

"Tony," Steve grinned at him. "Natasha."

Clint snorted. "Where've you two been? Trying to put Pepper through her paces?"

Natasha appeared silently next to him and punched him in the shoulder. It pulled a sharp yelp out of the archer.

"Wouldn't you like to know." Tony leered at Clint, then snickered at Steve's expression. "Calm down, Cap. Pepper won't thank you to fight her battles for her."

"She definitely won't," Pepper agreed, walking in just in time to hear the last sentence. "Why is Steve defending my honor, Tony?"

"Not important, Pep." Tony stepped around the island and pulled three mugs down from the rack. He filled all three with coffee. The first got adulterated with cream and sugar, then offered to Pepper. "Here."

Natasha got the second one, no cream or sugar in it, but with a spoonful of cocoa powder added instead. She saluted him with it, before taking a sip. "You're learning. A little less chocolate next time."

Tony rolled his eyes and drank from his own mug. Black and strong, like it had been intended to be enjoyed.

Clint was watching them intently, as though he could figure out if they were actually all together just by the way they took their coffee.

\------

Pepper had decided to take the remainder of the week off, enough to work from home. She had been fairly sure she would need that flexibility if she did end up feeling sick, and there were no major meetings in the next few days that she needed to attend. The most important thing, actually, Tony reflected, was the PR he had to do in the wake of the tanker incident, and she had asked Natasha coerce him into doing that.

That was why he was here with her, in front of rows of mics and cameras, rather than sitting with Pepper as the newly synthesised antidote worked through her system.

JARVIS had sent him a picture, pretty obviously taken from one of his cameras, just before the press conference. Apparently Clint and Steve had been roped into watching a movie with her. The three of them were comfortably sprawled across the large sofa in the common area with popcorn.

He refocused when Natasha stepped in front of him, tucked a set of cue cards into his pocket, and then straightened his tie. "Go get 'em, tiger," she murmured, and stepped back.

Tony put on his best salesman's smile. It was showtime.


	2. Chapter 2

Somewhat to his surprise, the press conference had gone off without a hitch; not even Everhart's pointed questions had thrown him off his stride. And now, finally, he had a chance to get back to the Tower penthouse and cuddle Pepper for a while.

Or, he considered the other option, he could let Natasha do it. He could see that she was itching to get back just about as much as he was. "Hey, Natasha," he called, getting her attention.

"What is it?" She was giving him a measuring look, trying to work out what he wanted.

"Got some ideas I want to work on, but I don't want to abandon Pepper."

He caught the amused twist of her lips before her expression smoothed out. "So you want to send me up to cuddle your girlfriend in front of Barton and Steve."

Tony shrugged. "They're almost sure of us anyway. Do you really care if they know? I don't."

Natasha huffed. "Have you talked to Pepper about that?"

"In passing. It was never really an issue until after our trip to the Bahamas?" Until they'd spent those three days at his house outside Nassau, it had only ever been something to consider in the abstract. "She wasn't against it as long as we could control the media exposure."

That got him a thoughtful nod.

A long moment later, Natasha straightened, squaring her shoulders. "Alright. But you'd better be in bed tonight. You promised."

He had. With a wry smirk, he replied, "you know time ceases to exist when you're focused on something."

"JARVIS," Natasha requested as the elevator car slowed to a stop on the main penthouse level, "if Tony's still working at midnight, kick him out."

"Hey!"

"Of course, Ms. Romanov."

"Traitor," Tony grumbled.

"I am only looking out for you, sir," came the predictable reply, and the worst about it was, Tony couldn't even refute it.

"I'll see you later," Natasha tweaked his nose, and left him to his thoughts.

The elevator doors shut behind her, and silence reigned through the trip down to the workshop after a few grumbled curses. Knowing that neither Natasha or JARVIS would change their minds about his time limit, Tony chose to start thinking about his project.

By the time he hit the doors of his workshop, he had a plan of action roughed out. "Alright, J," he said as he settled himself at his main workstation, "fire up the design interface and bring up those Extremis specs we grabbed off Killian. We've got some coding to do."

"I do hope you are not about to make Ms. Potts angry at you again, sir."

Tony smiled crookedly. "With a bit of ingenuity, it should make life a lot easier for everyone involved. The healing factor we saw in all the Extremis subjects on that tanker has me thinking..."

\------

The way it worked out, JARVIS had just given him a five-minute warning, but Tony had actually hit a convenient stopping point. He stood and stretched his shoulders, loosening the tightness in his muscles. "Alright," he said aloud, "save and shut down. We're done for the night."

"I feel I must point out, sir," JARVIS replied, "that should you keep this project a secret from Ms. Potts and Ms. Romanov, you will likely cause them some distress."

Tony snorted, opening the workshop door and stepping out into the warmer air of the short corridor that connected to the elevator shaft. "Yeah, doubt it. Pepper, you're probably right about, but Romanov?"

"I will abide by our agreement for the time being," JARVIS informed him, "but if you do not tell them about your plans, and I am asked, I will not hesitate to share what I know."

Tony scowled. After the Palladium Poisoning Incident, as Pepper tended to call it, when she'd found out about everything from Natasha and JARVIS, she'd been livid. She hadn't done a thing against either of them, but she'd used the leverage it gave her and struck an agreement with JARVIS. If Tony was working on something that endangered his life in any way, she wanted to be in the know. Likewise, if anything he'd developed previously became a danger to him. "I know, buddy," he said, after a long pause.

"For the time being," the AI suggested, "it might be wisest to join Ms. Potts and Ms. Romanov in the master bedroom and spend some time with them. But the best course of action would be to tell them in the morning, so that I do not have to. That would likely upset all of you."

"Meddler."

Tony could hear the smirk when his AI shot back, "I learned from the best, sir."

He found Pepper and Natasha curled together on the big bed, more or less as he'd expected. They seemed to be lazily making out, which wasn't quite what he'd expected. Leaning against the doorframe, he stayed silent, watching for a moment. He was sure Natasha knew he was there. Pepper probably did too.

After a couple of minutes, they broke apart and turned toward the door. Pepper met his eyes first. "Well," she challenged, "are you going to stand there or join us?"

Tony pretended to consider that. "What's on offer?"

"Cuddling and sleep," Pepper's voice was firm. Natasha didn't say anything but Tony could tell she was all for that plan.

Pushing off the doorframe, Tony walked toward the bed, stripping off his clothes as he went. "And how are you feeling?"

"Surprisingly normal, actually." Pepper shrugged. "No side effects or other symptoms yet."

Natasha put in, "I don't think either of the others has gotten past the point of guessing about us."

Tony shrugged and looked at Pepper, deciding that meant the two of them had already discussed the issue. "Should we tell them about us?"

Pepper didn't dispute it, but she did avoid the topic. "Let's talk about that in the morning. Come here."

Rather than insist on an answer, Tony shrugged.


	3. Chapter 3

Morning came, and awareness with it. Natasha was tucked against his chest, and Pepper snugged up behind him. Looking down at Natasha revealed that her eyes were slotted open, watching him. As usual, she had been the first one to wake. Also as usual, she had taken full advantage of that to enjoy a lazy hour or so in bed with the two of them before breakfast. Now that she was running fewer missions for SHIELD, she could allow herself that luxury, and so she did.

A few silent minutes later, Pepper stirred, and her arms slid around Tony, putting her hands in the perfect position to caress his abs and chest.

It took them some time to get out of bed and dressed. No one brought the topic of informing their teammates of their unconventional relationship up again.

Breakfast was a quiet affair. Only Steve joined them. Clint, apparently, was nursing a hangover. Tony had to wonder when Clint had drunk enough alcohol to get to that state, and whether Steve or Natasha had joined him. Neither of the others looked remotely hungover.

Then again, Steve couldn't even have gotten buzzed on the same amount of alcohol as would render Clint almost insensate. Natasha... he wasn't sure about, though he suspected she had one hell of a tolerance. He hadn't ever had the chance to actually find out first hand.

"How are you feeling today, Ms. Potts," Steve broke the companionable silence.

"Not nearly as miserable as Tony painted it, actually. Slightly achy and warm, but mostly normal."

"Good," Tony dropped a kiss on her cheek.

"What's on the agenda for the day," Pepper asked Natasha.

"Nothing earth-shaking. The PR department wanted to know what angle they should take on the remaining questions regarding the situation on the Roxxon Norco, and the marketing department is asking about the arc reactor publicity campaign. There are about twenty-five requests for interviews with you, but they've all been denied or postponed."

Steve looked up from his plate. "Interviews? About how she was kidnapped and experimented on?"

Pepper huffed. "The media don't care if you were hurt, or a victim, or much of anything else. They just want something to report that no one else has." She turned to Natasha. "I'll consider doing one or two next week, as long as they're with reputable agencies and suitably briefed beforehand."

That got a decisive nod from Natasha. "Sounds reasonable." She turned to Tony. "Stark, your schedule initially looked the same as usual."

"But...?" Tony raised an eyebrow at her.

"But Pepper and I rearranged things to that the day is free." Natasha looked him over once, critically. "The two of you should spend some time together."

Tony looked over at Pepper and smirked at her. "Well, I know what I'd like to do now that Extremis is on its way out."

Pepper rolled her eyes but smiled slightly. "We'll see." She hooked her arm through his and hauled him away from the kitchen island. "First, you are going to talk to me about that secret project of yours," she prompted.

Steve perked up at that. "Project? Is that why you didn't come join us for the movie?"

Pepper smiled, surprisingly affectionately. "Steve wanted sci-fi and Clint wanted something from before the 90s, so we watched the original Tron."

"JARVIS," Tony huffed, "I thought I told you to warn me when they started bringing the 80s into Cap's education."

"You did, sir," the AI replied, tone pointed, "but your insistence on finishing the Extremis antidote seemed more important."

Oh. Between that warning and Pepper's hint about projects, it was pretty clear that the jig was up and he needed to talk.

Didn't mean he wanted to.

"Yeah," Tony put on a smile, "but you're leaving out the best part, J."

"Which part is that, Tony," Steve asked.

"I think I've found a way to get rid of the reactor," he replied, pleased with the way that the room went utterly silent.

"Define 'get rid of'," Natasha asked, tone carefully level and blank.

Steve stood from his seat and physically gave her his support. Tony almost rolled his eyes. "Get rid of. As in make it possible for me to survive removing it."

Pepper sat down hard on a nearby chair. "And how, exactly do you propose to do that, Tony?"

"With Extremis."

"Tony, no." Steve was trying to loom and make his point clear that way. Too bad that didn't work on him.

"I don't see why not," Tony stared down the team's de facto leader. "I've fixed it."

"You what?" Steve looked ready to throw a punch.

"I fixed it. No more idiotic features like internal fusion reactors to power abilities and completely destroy the body's homeostasis. Used up way too much energy, and couldn't dump heat effectively. That was what made Extremis so unstable," Tony explained.

Natasha was nodding, now, at least partially mollified. "And how will you power the healing factor, then?"

"Well, I considered doing it with the reactor, as you're hinting, but then I'd never be able to remove it. Cyclical argument: no reactor, no power; no power, no healing; no healing, no removing the reactor," Tony replied. "I'll have to do it the old-fashioned way with high calorie foods, like Cap."

Pepper still looked somewhat pale. "And you're sure it's safe?"

"Insofar as we can determine without an actual trial," JARVIS put in, "yes. The Kolmogorov isoperimetric sequence, which we are using as a measure of the effectiveness of the healing factor as a function of caloric intake, returns values which not only suggest that the new iteration of Extremis will be stable, but that it should be sustainable under both normal conditions and in battle when using the Iron Man armour."

Tony crouched down in front of Pepper and took her hands in his. "I wouldn't do this if I wasn't sure of it. You know that."

Pepper's voice wobbled a little. "Like you were sure of the armour?"

He hid a wince, knowing Steve was probably storing that away to ask about later. "That's kind of inherent to the way product development works? I fixed it, didn't I?"

"And have you considered," Natasha put in, "that giving yourself a healing factor would put you on everyone's radar?"

Tony snorted. "First, I'm already on everybody's radar. Second, they'd have to find out first, and I'm not telling. Are you?"

"You'd have to tell the doctors," Pepper reminded him, "how do you know they won't say anything?"

It was a fair point. Tony shrugged. "So I'll get the SHIELD med team to do it. Or I can always take a surgeon on retainer. It's not like I don't have the means to do it. Actually, I might anyway, with the way this team gig seems to be shaping up. I'm not a big fan of SHIELD's habit of being super invasive."

He and JARVIS hadn't found anything in the aftermath of the Chitauri invasion to suggest that SHIELD was being more than just their usual annoying superspy selves, but that didn't necessarily mean much. Actually, it was _more_ suspicious that he hadn't found much blackmail-worthy information after breaking into Fury's systems on the Helicarrier. Some more weapons development stuff, and some weird medical research on consciousness transfer, but nothing he could use directly.

When he tuned back in, Pepper was still watching him carefully, staring him down like she wanted to know what he was thinking about. "You know what," she gave in after a beat, "one problem at a time. First I want you to be _completely_ sure it's out of my system. _Then_ we can discuss this new insane plan of yours."

Tony made an offended noise; it wasn't insane. "It's nowhere near as risky as you think, Pep."

"I don't care," she shot back, "you are going to cuddle with me on the sofa today."

Tony gave in. "We're talking about this some more later, though," he reminded her.

Steve snickered and Natasha somehow rolled her eyes without actually doing it. Tony sneered at their team captain as he stood and pulled Pepper to her feet. Yes, okay, giving in so quickly definitely looked like he was wrapped around her little finger, but Tony couldn't give less of a fuck about that. He knew Pepper could and would do pretty much the same thing for him. Had done after the Palladium Poisoning Incident. Well, once she'd calmed down a little. Tony didn't hold that against her. Anymore.

\------

They didn't talk about it more until they were cuddled together in bed. To Tony's surprise, it was Natasha who broke the silence on the topic.

"Tony," Natasha asked, low voiced and cautious, "if the reactor's not poisoning you anymore, why remove it? Why not just take Extremis and leave it where it is?"

"What, no more questions about the safety aspect," Tony riposted. He wasn't sure how to answer that. It was oddly reassuring though, that Pepper was just listening. Waiting to hear his reasoning. She'd been right to ask to talk about this after they had all calmed down.

"No," she replied, tone calm and almost what he'd call curious. "JARVIS and I talked while you spent time with Pepper. Now, answer the question."

"I..." Tony took a breath and tried to find the right words. "It's a question of personal safety, actually. You know how I said I could power Extremis with the reactor, yeah?" He felt her nod. It rubbed the tip of her nose against his ear, the way they were curled up together. "Well, if I took Extremis and didn't remove it, I'd be constantly tempted to use it to power this or the other thing. Use it to heal bruises faster, or boost the range of the other capabilities it would give me." He had no doubt she'd learned about those from JARVIS already. Pepper hadn't though. He met her eyes and explained, "besides the healing factor, I could use it to interface with the armour. And all sorts of other tech."

"That's not exactly a weakness, Tony," Natasha prompted.

"Maybe not," he conceded, "but the consequences of pulling the reactor would be almost as severe as if someone did it now. Even if Extremis could heal my body around the reactor, yanking that amount of power out of my system that suddenly would cause sudden catastrophic shutdowns of all kinds of shit, with consequences ranging from the healing factor flat out disappearing to me falling unconscious. I'd prefer that not to happen."

It took a while for them to fall asleep that night. Neither of Pepper nor Natasha let him go for any prolonged period of time, either.

The whole thing made something in his chest pull tight until it ached, and he put a hand against the remains of his sternum. It didn't make the sensation go away. Damn it, he knew Pepper loved him. But now, from the looks of things, he also had to count on the fact that Natasha was definitely fond of having him around. She wouldn't have been so upset about the idea otherwise. Gratifying as that was though, having to incorporate it into his worldview was... disorienting.

He very carefully didn't think about Steve's reaction.

There was just no way.

\------

Natasha and Pepper were both gone when he woke the next morning, not that they'd gone far. He found them almost immediately, in the lounge on the common floor. They were holding mugs of coffee and Pepper was half-draped over Hawkeye. Tony eyed them for a moment, and rubbed at his eyes. Nope, still Hawkeye.

"Hey, Tony," the archer called out, finally acknowledging his presence. "Bring the coffeepot out here, would'ya? We could all use a refill."

He didn't answer. Just shuffled into the kitchen instead. There was just enough coffee left in the carafe for him to take the edge off, so he did, sipping at it while a fresh pot brewed and listening to the murmur of voices in the other room. A peek into the 'fridge revealed a plate with a post-it on top that had his name printed on it in neat letters. That was pretty obviously Steve's doing. It was the work of a few seconds to pop the plate in the microwave and heat the food back up.

Tony felt substantially more awake by the time the coffee was ready. That also meant he was actually hungry, so the plate Steve had left was a very welcome gesture. Moments after the coffee was ready, the microwave pinged.

This was also not the first time Steve had left him food, Tony reflected as he grabbed flatware out of a drawer to his left. It was becoming something of a habit, in fact.

Setting aside the thought, he took his food and the carafe of coffee out into the common area. Clint perked up the moment he reappeared, and Tony raised an eyebrow at him. "Addict."

"Whatever, man," Clint replied, unoffended, and waved his cup at Tony, "you mainline the stuff, too. I've seen you."

Natasha snorted, uncurling slightly from where she was tucked against Pepper's side to hold out her mug. "He still drinks less than you, Clint."

"Hey, you're supposed to be on my side," Clint whined.

Pepper snickered. "I'm pretty sure Natasha is on my side, actually."

The two of them shared a smile that had Clint shifting uncomfortably until Natasha pulled him back into their little cuddle pile. Tony shrugged, topped off Pepper's mug where it sat on the coffee table, and claimed the comfortably padded chair opposite the sofa to eat.

They fell silent for a little while. Pepper kept stealing glances at him, and Natasha was toying with her hair. Clint watched Natasha with speculation in his eyes. "You know, I could do something really nice with your hair, Pepper."

Pepper blinked at him, caught flat-footed by the remark. "Since when do you know how to style hair," she asked.

Clint huffed, amused. "I ran away to live with a literal circus when I was young and stupid. You learn all kinds of skills there."

\------

Tony had gotten restless after a couple of hours, and Pepper had let him go. It was nothing less than she had expected, after all. He wasn't known for his ability to stay idle for long periods of time, no matter how much he liked the people he was with. He left her to watch movies with Barton and Natasha, making his way down to his workshop.

"Wake up," he called out, stepping up to his main work station, "daddy's home."

"Welcome back, sir," JARVIS replied drily. "DUM-E and U have missed hearing your sparkling repartee."

Tony snorted. Smartass. "Bring up the Extremis schematics, would you J," he requested.

DUM-E beeped, rolling up behind him with a glass of something in his claw that Tony just knew would be either an abomination of science or poisonous, or both. "What? DUM-E, what is that? What have I told you about--" he glanced down at the glass, "-- about putting antifreeze in the smoothie machine?"

The response he got from the bot was disappointed.

"I'm not going to drink this," Tony maintained. "Don't sulk at me. If you wanted me to drink it, you should have paid attention to the Inedible List."

He got the impression of an amused snort from JARVIS, who interceded. "Come, DUM-E, we will make a better one for sir when he is actually hungry."

With more or less mollified beep, DUM-E accepted that.

As Tony turned back to the holographic interface of his workstation, JARVIS added, "what is your goal for today, then, sir?"

"We, JARVIS, are going to tweak these schematics until I can use Extremis to talk to you. As securely as possible."

"Very well, sir," JARVIS replied, "but may I remind you that such wireless communications are impossible to secure entirely?"

"You can. We'll build in defenses, obviously. There's already enough baseline connectivity to warrant it, without the changes I have in mind. These morons did the equivalent of setting up an internet hotspot without a password."

A list of proposed additions and alterations to the Extremis code appeared in a window just above his left hand. Tony nodded, as he scrolled through. "Looks good, but I want to make some changes to the base code we have for those features. And add functionality for an editor and code compiler to the list. If I ever lose connection to the satellite network and you, or the suit, I want to still be able to patch Extremis or fix modules."

"Very well, sir," JARVIS acknowledged the request, and updated the display.

With a decisive nod, Tony started going down the list, one item at a time. He'd start with the encryption protocols. Opening up the code with a tap on the interface, Tony settled in to revamp Extremis to meet his rigorous standards. There were good odds that he wouldn't get a second shot at this, if it failed, given Pepper's reaction, so it had to work the first time.

And it had to be as stable as a server OS, if not moreso. Extremis would be the ultimate uptime test, in a very real sense, and everything needed to be how swappable because the bad guys sure as hell weren't going to let him just put a fight on hold to fix himself up.

Actually... That gave him an idea, and he added another item to the list: hard- and software reboot capability.

\------

Tony resurfaced when a set of footfalls sounded behind him. Either Pepper or Natasha judging by the clack of the heels on concrete. "Something wrong," he asked over his shoulder, finishing out a line of code and adding the comments before he turned away from what he was doing. "Is Pepper okay?"

Natasha stood calmly between him and the doorway. "She's fine. She's watching Steve and Clint play MarioKart. JARVIS said you were trying to make yourself wifi compatible."

Tony huffed. That was an oversimplification. "Is there a problem with that?"

"Only if you're not also making it secure."

Tony watched her closely. There was a hint of concern under her usual nonchalance that defused a good portion of his indignation before he replied. "What kind of idiot do you take me for?"

She nodded. "Then there's no problem."

An idea struck him, then, and he pointed off to his right. "J, you got that list of surgeons we talked about earlier?" The list popped into view under his hand. "Thanks." He looked back at Natasha, knowing that the seriousness of this request would probably reveal more than he was comfortable with, and not as much as he wanted. "Wanted to ask you something, Natasha."

"You want to know who I think you should choose."

Bingo. Tony nodded. "You know anything about them that throws up a red flag, or anything shady they've done before, they're off the list. And I do mean anything."

Natasha smiled slightly as she scrolled through the list. "Give me a day or two. A couple of these names are new to me."


	4. Chapter 4

Three days later, Tony had a name and an appointment set a few days in the future. Natasha had apparently gone a bit beyond the limits of what he'd asked, and contacted her top choice. And found a way to arrange things to everyone's liking, including the surgeon. The whole procedure would be executed on-site in Stark Tower, where they had access to JARVIS to help control Extremis as well as access to the state of the art facilities initially designed for the Avengers.

He and JARVIS had also finished their design tweaks and simulations, including _ex vivo_ testing of Extremis. All that was left was the injection.

Tony did that on a Tuesday in mid-January, knowing that on Friday things would get very tense in the Tower. Preparations for the removal of the reactor would start on the following morning, consisting primarily of a set of 3-D x-rays to find the remaining shrapnel fragments. There was a high probability that they would have migrated toward the arc reactor over time, as a result of the variation in magnetic field strength. It had been calculated to do no more than hold the fragments near his heart, but anything closer to the magnet would have potentially been subjected to enough applied force on the part of the generated magnetic field to slowly get pulled through his tissue.

The day after would be reserved for the surgeon to plan and prepare himself and his team.

And on Friday, everything would change.

\------

Pepper couldn't help the shudder that went through her as the first incision was made. Natasha, ever observant, put a hand on her shoulder. It was enough to help ground her and let her take a deep breath.

Steve was giving her a knowing look. "Everything has been triple checked, multiple times, you know," he offered. "And Hawkeye is keeping an eye on the doors."

Pepper gave him a slightly shaky smile, appreciating the gesture for what it was, but words eluded her. He was in full uniform, wearing the shield on his back. It was one hell of a visual, and she was pretty sure now, what had drawn Tony to the image of the Captain in his youth. There was a magnetic quality about him, something that went beyond the amazing musculature he had, or the very correct posture. It simultaneously made her want to stand straighter and get on her knees to do things not discussed in polite company.

She was happily taken, but not blind, after all.

JARVIS chose to chime in. "As am I. There is no need to worry, Ms. Potts. All parameters are well within expected ranges."

The silence that fell afterward held until the first piece of shrapnel hit the arc-reactor powered magnet suspended above the operating table with a sharp _tink_.

The tension in Pepper's shoulders slowly loosened. It was working. It was _working_.

The hours passed slowly, as they stood watch. After the first hour, Steve and Clint traded positions. It left Pepper feeling slightly off-balance and strange. She'd gotten used to having Captain America in the room, and somehow it was totally different when he left.

Actually, she thought, it was surprising that Tony hadn't spent more time flirting with either of these two. Steve and Clint both had a lot of the qualities he loved in people, in spades. Not to say that he'd do anything about physical attraction without talking to her, but it spoke volumes about how preoccupied he'd been with the aftermath of the Chitauri Invasion and then with getting Extremis dealt with, that it hadn't come up.

It had been nearly a half hour since the first shard had come loose, and the second _tink_ surprised her. Natasha's hand slid from her shoulder to rest between her shoulderblades. There was the faintest of trembles running through Natasha, betraying her own tension, but somehow Pepper doubted she would show even this much around anyone else. She slid her arm around Natasha's waist.

It got her a startled glance, and a small smile. "Thanks."

Clint eyed them strangely for a moment before going back to watching the doctors carefully. "Since when are you two so close?"

"We had some bonding time during the Expo," Natasha admitted.

Pepper snorted. "Tony trying to get himself killed is apparently a strong motivation for the rest of us to rally and keep him from succeeding."

Clint laughed. "No kidding. He doesn't even realise it, either, does he?"

"No," Pepper agreed. "He's convinced somewhere deep down, beyond my influence, that he's not good enough. For anyone, including himself."

Natasha looked at her, expression considering. "That explains a lot of things."

Pepper raised an eyebrow at her. "You didn't know?"

"I had all of three days to get to know his file, and then five to get to know him in person, and he was in a tailspin the whole time," Natasha shot back. "And it hasn't come up since."

"What do you think this was all about, then," Pepper waved a hand at the large window separating their little room from the operating theatre. "He's trying to 'improve' himself. That is going to produce Tony Stark, version two-point-oh. Whether we want it to or not."

Natasha looked startled, at that. "Pepper..." she started, and gave up when words weren't enough. Instead, she pulled Pepper in close, into a hug. With one hand in the small of Pepper's back, holding her steady, Natasha used the other to make sure Pepper met her eyes but it was Clint who spoke. "Pepper, he loves you. With all his broken heart. Enough to take the plunge into the unknown in the hopes that it will help keep him from dying on you because of the threats he helps us face down."

That brought a half smile to Pepper's face. It wobbled a little, but stayed there. "He always was an idiot."

Clint huffed. "No arguments from me."

\------

Clint and Steve had switched roles three more times before the surgeon started very carefully working on removing the arc reactor casing. Pepper's hand found Natasha's and she clung to it. This was the riskiest part of the whole thing. If this went sideways, it would be... Pepper swallowed hard against the lump in her throat. Bad.

Distantly, she heard her phone ring, and silenced it without taking it out of her pocket.

A moment later, it buzzed with a text.

Steeling herself to deal with whatever idiotic request was waiting for her, Pepper gave in and took out her phone with a sigh, and froze.

 _It's going fine, Pep,_ it read, and it was obvious who had sent it.

Natasha, kibitzing over her shoulder, made an exasperated sound in the back of her throat. "You were right. He's an idiot."

"He may be an idiot, but it's working. Look," Steve interrupted.

And, yes, that was the casing, removed intact. Pepper couldn't help feeling a little sick, seeing it. She'd had her hand in there before. And it had been sitting in Tony's body for years. Keeping him _alive_. And now he was free of it.

"It is, indeed, captain," JARVIS agreed, but Pepper barely heard the words. "Vital signs are holding steady. It should be possible to move him out of the sterile environment in approximately a half hour, if Extremis continues healing his injuries at its current rate. However, in order to maintain the current healing rate, sir will need to have his blood sugar supplemented intravenously if he is to maintain safe levels, as he was not allowed food prior to the procedure."

Before JARVIS had even finished speaking, an orderly had appeared with an IV bag and was hooking it up.

Pepper wasn't sure what brought it on, but Steve was suddenly there, taking her weight, and keeping her knees from folding. It was strange, really. She felt relieved enough to float away. Why was she falling?

A moment later, Natasha was bracketing her on her other side, telling Steve something with her eyes. "Come on, Pepper," he said, apparently in response. "You need to sit down and eat something."

Natasha nodded. "Did you even eat anything for breakfast?"

It sent a spike of... something, through Pepper. "No, I want to stay," she protested.

"Only until he's stabilised," Natasha decided. "Then you're having some cookies and juice to keep you level until we order dinner."

Pepper agreed, knowing that was probably the best she'd get. Her eyes stayed on Tony the whole time, watching astounded as the hole that had been carved into his sternum disappeared as though it had never been. Far more slowly than she had seen Killian's Extremis subjects do it, it was true, but the mere fact that it was working was… she couldn't find the words.

Watching them wheel Tony back out of the sterile area made it real in a way it hadn't been before. A wave of emotion crested and broke, and the outlet it demanded was luckily right beside her. Pepper turned to Natasha and pulled her in for a passionate kiss with an arm hooked around her neck.

Somewhere in the background, she heard a metallic clang, but didn't much care. Tony would recover, and probably be back at work long before they thought he was ready. She wanted to kiss him, too, but Natasha was here, in her arms and kissing back, enthusiastically.

When the kiss broke, Steve was nowhere to be seen. Natasha leaned in, resting her forehead against Pepper's, and laughed quietly. "JARVIS, save the last five minutes of surveillance footage from this room to Tony's private servers, please. Encrypted. And erase them from the primary logs."

It tore a giggle out of Pepper. That might not have been the best way to come out to Steve, but it was done now, and she was sure he'd be fine. Well, after he had a chance to get over the shock. In retrospect, that clang had probably been his shield hitting the floor. "Sorry?"

"It's Steve you should be apologising to," Natasha replied, and steered her towards the elevator. "But I know Tony will appreciate the look on Steve's face, once he recovers enough to watch the footage."

\------

As promised, Natasha had gently coerced her into having a snack. Then immediately followed it up by all but dragging her into the master bedroom. She was immediately pushed up against the closed door and kissed again. A moment later, her skirt was unzipped and fell to the floor to puddle around her feet. Surprised, Pepper allowed it to happen.

"I want you," Natasha breathed, her lips brushing over the pulse point in Pepper's neck, as she hooked her fingers into Pepper's stockings and started working them off her hips.

The wash of warm air over her neck and collarbones made Pepper shiver. "What did you have in mind," she asked. Natasha's hands abandoned the stockings at her knees and came up to cup her breasts. Pepper's breath hitched.

"I want you to let me lay you out on the bed," Natasha replied, leaning against Pepper's left leg, "and blow your mind."

"I think something can be arranged," Pepper agreed.

She let Natasha guide her to the bed and arrange her on it. A pillow went under her hips before Natasha ducked away for a moment to dig in the nightstand. "Let me taste you?"

"Go for it." Pepper watched as she set the bottle of lube within easy reach, and settled them both a little more comfortably. Natasha's crossed arms rested over her lower belly, and she rested her chin on them, just looking at her for a moment that seemed to stretch.

Twining her hands in Natasha's curls got her a quicksilver smile. Her panties disappeared, stripped off her so deftly she almost didn't notice, and then Natasha was leaning in for a first exploratory lick.

"Mmm," Pepper couldn't help the slight smirk that tugged at her lips, and knew Natasha could hear it, "I know you can do better than that."

She got a chuckle in response, and a few more forceful licks, centered around her clit. "Of course I can, but I was planning to savour this."

Another lingering application of her lips to Pepper's clit, along with a little bit of suction and the flats of her teeth, had Pepper throwing her head back with a gasp. "That's it. More."

Natasha's eyes met hers for a bare moment, and then a pair of nimble fingers was tracing up her inner thigh to tease at the delicate skin _just_ off to one side of where she wanted them.

"'Tasha," Pepper paused to swallow back a keening whine she could feel building in her throat before she managed to phrase her demand, "quit fucking around and fuck me!"

Natasha pulled back just far enough to smirk at her, and then licked her once from back to front, lingering at the apex and teasing her clit just that little bit more with light flicks of the tip of her tongue.

Pepper's hands tightened in Natasha's hair and she pulled, physically putting Natasha's mouth where she needed it. Natasha allowed it, not resisting. The tease picked up again, this time in the form of two fingers that Natasha was running through the gathering wetness between her legs, and Pepper couldn't help the way her hips thrust up. She _needed_ those fingers inside her.

Happily, after that, she got what she wanted. "Finally," Pepper moaned. "Do it. I want your fingers so deep in me I can taste them."

Natasha snickered. "I don't think that's physically possible."

"I." Pepper moved her hand down to grab at Natasha's wrist, holding it steady as she ground down on the fingers buried in her to the first knuckle. "Don't." The move drove them deeper, and Pepper's head fell back onto the mattress when they pressed against her sweet spot, making her see stars. "Care!"

When Natasha's talented tongue and lips came back down, Pepper thought disjointedly that Natasha had been right about blowing her mind, and that was all the time she had for coherent thought. After that, the world dissolved into heat and movement, narrowing down to the movements that would give her release.

When she came, clenching hard around Natasha's fingers with a loud hitching moan, Natasha shuddered hard and pulled away. She bit her lip, her own hips jerking and rolling against the bed as she came as well, and it was only then that Pepper realised that Natasha had been rolling her own clit between her fingers as she worked to get Pepper off.

The thought sent a strong aftershock through her, and Pepper had to bite her own lip.

"Damn," she said, low voiced, "that was intense."

Natasha grinned at her, finding the strength somewhere to stand. "It was good for me, too," she replied as she took the few steps over to the adjoining bathroom to clean up. She came back with a damp hand towel and gently cleaned Pepper up, too, before tossing the towel into the hamper in the bathroom.

Pepper stretched with a satisfied smile and reached out to her lover. "Come here and hold me."


	5. Chapter 5

When they untangled themselves, five hours later, Pepper was surprised at how much calmer she felt. She hadn't slept, exactly, but it definitely counted as rest. It was as though the majority of the stress had literally evaporated. She'd already been on the upswing by the time they'd hit the bedroom, Pepper knew, buoyed by the sheer relief that Tony's latest crazy scheme had _worked_. The physical and emotional release of the good sex had only helped that along.

They took turns cleaning up properly, then, and made their way down to the common floor, tipped off by JARVIS that that was where Tony had escaped to.

It surprised exactly no one that Tony had convinced the doctors to let him out of bed something like six hours later. Pepper was sure they'd had to work to keep him still even that long. He'd never been the most cooperative patient, and now that he knew he would heal quickly, that was only going to get worse.

He'd made his way to the common floor and gingerly settled himself on the sofa. Steve had followed him there, glowering at him disapprovingly, but hadn't been able to do more than convince Tony not to go down to the workshop. Pepper, showered and in clean clothes, had found them there. Tony had produced a tablet from somewhere, but was only staring at it.

Or, Pepper amended as she perched on the arm of the sofa, more accurately, he was working on something using Extremis to direct the tablet. She shook her head at him, but couldn't stop the small smile tugging at her lips or stop her fingers from running through his hair. He made a contented grunt and pushed into the caress.

Time would tell, but she strongly suspected that it would be exponentially more difficult to convince him to get checked out after missions, now. Or pry him out of his workshop, for that matter. It was already a herculean task, and now that he could think at JARVIS to get the work done... well.

"'M fine, Pep," he mumbled after a moment, then reached out to twine a hand through her free one and tug. "C'mere."

Clint gave her a Look she didn't need to know him well to interpret. It said 'just cuddle with the asshole who needs it' louder than words could have. A beat later, the archer looked up toward JARVIS' nearest camera. "Could you order in some food for us, JARV?"

"Thai?" Pepper suggested. It was one of Clint's favourites as well as Tony's.

Steve nodded. "That sounds good. You in, Natasha?" He looked over toward the door, and caught Natasha's eyes. Pepper hadn't realised she was in the room.

"As long as it's sufficiently solid and not something vegetarian," Natasha tossed her hair back. "Not all of us have the luxury to eat like Pepper."

Pepper rolled her eyes. "That was _once_ , and I didn't know better."

Tony snickered, remembering Natasha's betrayed expression that night, then winced when it made sore muscle and cartilage twinge. "Okay, no laughing yet. Ow."

Using the hand she still had in his hair to scratch gently at his scalp, Pepper had to suppress her exasperation with him even as she enjoyed the happy sound he made in the back of his throat. "Even with your fancy technological whatsit, you can't expect to be back to normal immediately, Tony."

Natasha crossed the room to settle gracefully at the other end of the sofa with Tony's feet in her lap and her hands wandering over his clothed calves. He glanced up at her then continued working, unbothered by the action that had Clint watching them with narrow eyes, assessing. Steve caught Pepper's attention and raised an eyebrow at her. She didn't bother to give him a response, verbal or otherwise, beyond raising an eyebrow back at him.

JARVIS picked that moment to add his two cents. "I must concur, sir. Pushing yourself too hard so soon after removal of the arc reactor results in a far higher likelihood of system instability and crash. Allow yourself time to recover from the changes in your physiology and acclimate to having Extremis adding to your metabolic load before over-using its new connections to redesign your armour again. The changes in resource allocation requirements alone will take some getting used to."

"Instead, you could tell us what is going on between you three," Steve added, his tone just slightly pointed as he gave Natasha a meaningful look.

Clint rolled his eyes. "We've been over this so many times since yesterday, Cap," he said. "I'm pretty sure they're all in a relationship, and what you told me about that kiss more or less confirms it."

Natasha smirked. "You have a problem with that?"

"Better not," Tony muttered under his breath.

Pepper shushed him gently and stood, staring Steve down. "Based on that comment, I'm fairly sure Clint won't have any trouble with our arrangement. Do you?"

Steve held her eyes for a moment before he looked down. "Can't say as I understand your 'arrangement'," he replied, "but it doesn't bother me."

Pepper nodded. "Good enough. JARVIS," she turned her head to address the AI rather than Steve, "would you be so kind as to assemble some relevant and reasonably safe-for-work reading on the topic and forward it to Steve?"

"Of course, Ms. Potts. Consider it done," JARVIS replied, tone holding a hint of laughter.

The discussion ended there, brought to a halt by the distraction of their food arriving. Privately, watching as Natasha prodded Tony into a seated position and gently but insistently took away his tablet, Pepper was amused that Steve had gone to Clint to gossip and pump for information, rather than JARVIS, who really quite liked him. There were a lot of factors at work there, though, now that she thought about it, starting with JARVIS' absolute loyalty to Tony, and ranging all the way down to Barton's training as a counter-terrorism agent. And she wasn't even going to touch the fact that Tony had had one hell of a crush on Steve as a teenager and not really quite gotten over it since. She'd only ever heard about it indirectly; Tony didn't like talking about it.

But all of that was neither here nor there.

She'd give things a couple of days to settle. This little revelation on top of Tony's surgery obviously had Steve off-balance, and he needed time to assimilate it all. Pepper knew she hadn't been imagining his protective reaction when Tony had announced his intention to remove the reactor; the way he'd backed up Natasha had been pretty clear.

Meantime, Clint was sorting through their order, setting the cartons of food and rice out on the coffee table, narrating as he went. "Let's see. Chicken satay, spring rolls, wontons, shrimp tom yum, tofu tom kha," he listed off the appetizers. They were claimed one-by-one as he laid them out. They left the entrees where they were for the moment, to stay warm.

"Don't slouch," Natasha told Tony, catching his eyes to let him know she was serious. When she was satisfied that Tony was comfortably settled and his position wasn't aggravating his injury, she put his satay appetizer in his lap and disappeared into the kitchen. It was Tony's favourite, not quite comfort food, but close with how much he enjoyed it. By the time Natasha had reappeared with flatware for everyone, the rest of them had settled themselves around the coffee table.

For his part, Tony mostly seemed relieved that his other teammates weren't freaking out over their sleeping habits. Pepper tucked herself closer to him and opened her tub of soup. Tony seemed to be running a bit warmer than normal, and she made a note to check on him again later. If he was developing a fever despite all the care that they'd taken to make sure the procedure took place in a sterile environment and stayed that way, that would not be a good sign.

\------

The next morning, Tony woke first with a sharp inhalation. Regulating his breathing, he managed to keep his reaction to a quick gasp. He didn't move, and Pepper could tell he didn't want to wake anyone else.

She slitted her eyes open, and had to suppress a similar reaction. The room was too dark. For all that they'd woken in a pleasantly warm and comforting tangle of limbs, Pepper found herself fighting not to freak out over not having the reactor's light to see by.

Not being able to see the reactor's light and know it was still doing its job would probably freak all of them out at some point in the future, she knew. The knowledge that his survival was directly tied to that white-blue light was deeply ingrained in all of them, and the recent scare at the end of the Chitauri Invasion hadn't helped with that. Tony had had the arc reactor for years, and it would take time for them to dismantle and rid themselves of that knee-jerk panic reaction.

A moment later, though, she heard and felt Tony inhale deeply, albeit carefully. He shifted, waking her fully, and Pepper watched as he stretched carefully, determining his range of motion. He still seemed to be running hot, she noted, and had noticed that she was awake.

"Mmm," he hummed contentedly and pulled her closer until she was more or less willingly plastered against his left flank. "The soreness is almost gone," he announced quietly a moment later, sounding very pleased with himself. Pepper ran her fingers lightly over the new skin. It was still pale and almost shiny, looking and feeling like a new set of scar tissue, but knowing Tony it wouldn't stay that way; he wouldn't want the reminder. She was fine with that. She didn't either.

That was the moment Natasha had pushed herself up on her elbow on Tony's other side, smiled and started sucking a livid hickey into the side of his neck. "Good," she commented as she did her best to get him worked up, "that means we just have to make sure you eat well at breakfast."

Pepper let her hands trail up from Tony's knees to rest on his hips. She wasn't resting much of her weight on him, but enough to keep him from squirming. "And that you can start making it up to us for springing this surprise surgery on us the way you did."

"I didn't--" he started.

Natasha cut off the words by wrapping a hand around the base of his cock and taking the head into her mouth.

"You did," Pepper insisted, bringing her hands up to his shoulders and leaning in to leave her own hickey over his collarbone.

Something Natasha did made him whine and his hips jerk. "I-- I-- Fuck! Natasha!"

A glance down the length of Tony's body revealed that Natasha had taken him in deeper and started to tease him with her tongue. It didn't take long for her to push him over the edge.

She watched as he went limp, relaxing back into the pillows and trying vainly to catch his breath. "If you're so upset about the surgery, what's with all the positive reinforcement, here," he asked, tone light.

Pepper smiled. "You told us before we had to find out from JARVIS, or anyone else."

Natasha nodded. "You thought we would react badly, but you told us anyway; you gave us enough warning to get through it. That's important to us."

Tony looked unsure for a moment, then seemed to give in with a mental shrug. "On that note, how do you feel about inviting Steve or Clint to join in?"

Pepper exchanged a look with Natasha before she replied. "We'll talk about that after breakfast. I need some time to think about that, and _you_ owe Natasha an orgasm."

Natasha got a hold of him by his hips and pulled, using her bodyweight to give her leverage. Tony yelped in surprise as he slid down the bed. "Whoa!"

"You heard Pepper," she replied, licking her lips, "come on."

"If you want more than my mouth or my fingers, you'll have to give me a little longer to recover," Tony shot back.

Pepper gave him a surprised look. "So that's not one of the 'features' you built into Extremis before you took it?"

Natasha smirked. "Just as well," she remarked, "or he wouldn't stop until he passed out."

Tony laughed. "That would be totally worth it. But no, I didn't. Well," he amended, "not intentionally. I'm not sure how the healing factor will affect that."

"Let's find out." Natasha shifted to stretch out on the bed next to him. "He's all yours, Pepper. I want to ride him once he's got it back up."

She caught Tony's eyes, and he nodded, "go for it."

Permission granted, Pepper started experimenting. Leaving a trail of bites across his torso had him squirming, but didn't seem to have much of a direct effect.

Hitching herself farther up, Pepper dropped a kiss on his sternum as she moved, stopping when they were face-to-face and putting most of her weight on her elbows, years of habit coming to the fore in the move. She'd spent so long not putting any weight on Tony's chest that she just did it automatically, now. As she settled, their legs twined together, leaving her in the perfect position to rub off on his thigh if she wanted. Tony was still soft, but she could tell he was interested. His hands came up to rest on her waist, the contact almost electrifying after she'd held herself back for so long. Natasha was watching them intently, her posture loose and languid but her expression and dark eyes betraying her arousal.

"Pep?" Tony looked caught between interest and concern, when she didn't move for a long moment.

Rather than answer verbally, she kissed him and thrust down against his leg. He got the idea pretty quickly, and his grip on her hips shifted upward, turning into a caress of her flanks that lingered for a beat. "That's it," he muttered, and Pepper felt his dick start to press against her hip again as he cupped and massaged her tits, "just like that."

"It's not enough." Grinding down with more force this time, she threw her head back. "Come on, Tony! More!"

With an amused huff, he slid one hand down again to settle on her waist and used the leverage to steady her. Her movements had been getting progressively easier and smoother as her wetness coated the skin she was rubbing against. It would take a long hot shower to get it back off again, and she reveled in the knowledge that he would walk around smelling like her and sex for a while. Possibly even through breakfast with Steve and Clint.

Natasha chose that moment to run her hands down Pepper's back until they hit the curve of her ass, then around to her lower belly and a little further down. Pepper moaned as Natasha's hand wormed its way between her skin and Tony's, giving her a firm target to rub off on. She could feel Natasha's other hand working at Tony's skin, massaging the insides of his thighs before moving higher. He made a half aroused half confused sound when Natasha wrapped her hand around his cock and started working it.

"Oh-- Nngh, Nata-- what? I'm not--" He stuttered, lost in the sensations, and Pepper had to kiss him.

It was messy and her teeth caught briefly on his chapped lips, but she didn't care. She was getting close, and knew they could both tell. Natasha's fingers left Tony and slid over her skin until two of them could push inside her.

It was too much, and Pepper bit her lip as she came.

"Damn," Tony got out, but couldn't seem to find the rest of his sentence, his eyes glued to Natasha.

A glance over her shoulder was all Pepper needed to understand why. Natasha was licking her fingers clean. "You taste good, Pepper," she purred. "If I didn't ache for a good fuck right now, I'd lay you out and lick you clean."

The idea sent an interested twitch through her, but Pepper didn't move. Instead she watched, sated, until Natasha decided she was done giving them a show. When Natasha gently shouldered her to the side, she let herself go boneless and flop down onto the bed. It took a moment for her to remember how to make her limbs work, but then Pepper reached out to twine her fingers with Tony's. He was hard again, a lot earlier than she'd expected, and seemed mesmerised by Natasha's sensual movements.

Natasha lifted their joined hands far enough to drop a kiss on their knuckles, then moved up to kneel over Tony. With a smirk, she reached out without preamble to steady Tony's cock as she dropped her hips. A drawn out and very satisfied sound escaped her when she was settled, and Tony sheathed completely.

Tony's grip on her hand had tightened almost convulsively as Natasha had taken him in, and Pepper laughed, squeezing back. Natasha, her hands braced on Tony's upper arms for balance, slowly raised herself up and then held that position until Tony couldn't take the tease any longer. When he gave in to the urge to move, to take and claim, Natasha dropped her hips sharply, the movement driving the breath out of both of them, before she settled into a steady rolling rhythm.

After all the build up, it didn't take much to get Natasha off the first time. She didn't let Tony stop moving, though. "Yes! Fuck! Keep going!"

When her muscles finally unlocked from her orgasm, Natasha started moving again, chasing the lingering aftershocks until she had wrung all she could out of her body. Her breath coming fast, she let herself go limp, draping herself bodily over Tony as he thrust into her until he was coming with a gasp, too.

Tony's free arm came up to wrap around her waist, and he pulled Pepper in closer with their twined hands. She acquiesced readily, shifting until she could touch both of them.

They stayed there, enjoying the afterglow, for the better part of half an hour, and the only reason they moved was JARVIS' warning that the others were working on preparing breakfast.


	6. Chapter 6

It only occurred to Pepper as she made her way down to the communal kitchen for dinner that they hadn't seen Steve much at all the whole day, but there he was, doing his best to provoke Tony with ridiculous internet memes that he was still 'discovering'. Pepper knew for a fact that he'd found this one weeks ago; she'd overheard him asking Clint what it meant.

"-- no," Tony was saying, "just, no. JARVIS how could you allow such a travesty of internet stupidity to cross our servers?"

"Tony," Steve reminded him, "you did ask JARVIS to help me learn how the internet worked."

"But not so that you could ask him about every single idiotic meme on the face of the planet," Tony argued and crossed his arms over his chest. "I want nothing whatsoever to do with that tablet anymore."

Pepper stepped up behind Tony and leaned against his shoulder with her hip. "Tony, you're over-reacting."

He turned to pout petulantly up at her, but leaned into the contact. "Even thinking about trash like that makes me feel like I'm losing brain cells."

"Where are Clint and Natasha," Pepper changed the subject.

"They went to get the take-out," Steve answered, his amused smirk letting her know that he saw right through the tactic.

That was fine by her. "Good," she quipped and claimed the seat next to Tony. "I'm hungry, and that means the two of you definitely need to eat." 

That, thankfully, was the moment the elevator pinged and the doors slid soundlessly open. Clint and Natasha stepped out, both carrying a take-out bag in each hand.

Clint grinned when he saw her. "Perfect, we're all here. Let's eat!"

For once, the meal was uneventful, the conversation centered around bizarre miscellany that Clint had seen on his various missions. Steve put in a comment here and there to steer the conversation to or from a specific topic, and Tony seemed to just delight in throwing Clint conversational curve balls in the form of facts that ranged from completely accurate to so outrageously false even Steve could tell. Pepper relaxed bit by bit as the time passed, relieved that there was truly no awkwardness due to their unconventional relationship.

After they'd eaten, it didn't take much convincing for Steve to get all of them settled and start a spirited discussion over what movie to watch. When they hadn't come to a conclusion ten minutes later, Pepper and Natasha exchanged a look.

"JARVIS," Natasha requested, her voice not loud but firm enough to cut through the three-way argument like a knife, "put on the original Ghostbusters."

"With pleasure, Ms. Romanov," the AI replied, and the men stopped arguing.

Pepper reached out to twine her fingers with Natasha's and lean against her girlfriend's shoulder. This felt like a mix of 'home' and 'family', and it was something she'd all but given up finding once she'd gotten together with Tony. Living with the equivalent of a rockstar didn't really lend itself to the concept of 'cozy', and yet here they were.

\------

It was only after the movie ended and the five of them dispersed that Pepper let herself think about what Tony had suggested that morning. It hadn't come as a shock to her. Not really. But it was a little weird that it had come up so soon after she'd thought about his surprising restraint around Steve and Clint. Then again, they had given him the perfect opening, though.

There was no doubt in her mind that Tony wanted to keep their working relationships in good shape. He might dick around and do stupid things where it came to everyday relationships, such as insulting Hammer or Everhart, but when it came to saving the world there was no question that he was deadly serious about things.

Well, Pepper amended, to anyone who knew him well enough to see past his masks. It had taken her a long time to really get past the masks Tony wore, but once she had, she couldn't unsee it. In the end, that had really been the tipping point for her. After Afghanistan, a lot of veils and misapprehensions had been ripped away; she'd realised that she might love him a little bit, and that had only intensified after he'd come home full of an inner fire she'd never seen before. He'd had a new sense of purpose and not hesitated to use it. It had taken them a while to get their acts together, though.

After they'd gotten together, it had taken time to knock off all the rough edges to their relationship. She'd had to sit him down for a lot of long talks in the first few months, laying ground rules and clearing up misunderstandings. In the year between the Expo Debacle and the Chitauri Invasion, they'd eventually managed to find common ground and a real understanding, but it hadn't been easy. Tony had a tendency to take hits, be they emotional or physical, and then go nurse his hurts in private.

The first few times, she'd let it happen. After that, when JARVIS had alerted her the next time, he'd been insistent. She'd understood why the moment she'd walked into the workshop and found him lying sprawled untidily on the floor. JARVIS had also called for medical assistance, which had given her time to decide what to say and how.

They'd had another long talk once Tony was recovered enough for it.

Things had improved a little after that, and stabilised until that night that Agent Coulson had broken into the penthouse suite as they'd celebrated getting the arc reactor powering the building up and running. The next few days had been a horrible mix of suspense and fear, culminating in that call from Tony that she'd missed. God, she'd felt guilty about that for months. Still did, sometimes, but having Tony alive and at her side made up for a lot. So did the knowledge that Natasha had been in the field with him keeping an eye on him. It had taken her a while to forgive Natasha for being the one to close the portal on Tony. Or Steve for giving the order, no matter how necessary.

She'd also heard about his disastrous first meeting with Steve, for that matter. From both of them, actually. The changes perspective made on that scene had been very interesting. Steve, despite being a good judge of people, hadn't seen Tony's mask for what it was until afterward. She suspected he was still trying to make it up to Tony on some subconscious level, the way he mothered Tony.

It was particularly telling that Natasha allowed and even encouraged the behaviour.

Pepper pushed open their bedroom door and let herself in. She didn't turn the lights on, walking to the wall of floor-to-ceiling windows lining the southern wall and looking out over Lower Manhattan. Her eyes automatically picked out the hole in the skyline that the destruction of the Twin Towers had left and which had been filled again by the replacement -- so jarringly different, even after all these years -- and then lingered on other familiar parts of the skyline. Touchstones, all of them, in their own ways. The Chrysler Building. The Empire State. The Rockefeller Center. Beyond them, the Statue of Liberty. All of them lit up brilliantly, as if to erase the very darkness of the night. New York had always been something of a beacon, throughout its history, and it was as if the city's engineers had decided to make that metaphor literal with all the floodlights they'd designed in.

Tony was no different, really.

Two very familiar voices drifted into the room from just beyond the door before it opened, letting the light of the hallway spill in briefly before it shut. Neither of them broke the silence in the room, though. Just walked over and wrapped their arms around her.

Pepper smiled.

It took a few minutes, but Tony got tired of the silence. "So, you said we should discuss Clint and Steve later. This is later."

Natasha huffed, amused, sending a wash of warm breath across Pepper's collarbone. "That's true. It is." She turned to face Tony more fully. "What, exactly, did you want?"

"Well," Tony paused and visibly marshalled his thoughts. "That depends on you two? If you're not interested in either of them, that's one thing, and we'd need to hash out how it would work. If you are... I'd say, invite them in to join us. A one-off would strain things with Steve," Tony took a breath, "and it's not what I'd want, either."

Natasha watched him steadily.

"And Clint?" Pepper prompted, wanting to hear the rest.

Tony smirked, a flash of humour coming through. "Legolas would probably be okay with a one-night-stand, but that would make Steve awkward again."

Natasha considered it; Pepper could see the thoughts come up and linger as she tested them. Eventually, she spoke. "I will provisionally say yes, pending a more thorough discussion with the parties involved present. Pepper?"

Pepper blew a deep breath out through her nose. "I don't know. I like both of them, and they're attractive, but how will we balance everyone? The three of us took time to find our equilibrium, and it will only take longer if we're four, or five."

"That's a good point," Natasha nodded, "but you had something else to say."

Pepper bit her lip before she replied. "I have a possessive streak. What do you intend to do if that becomes a problem?"

Tony shrugged. "We'll work it out. That's an 'if' not a 'when'. As to equilibrium, we can invite them one at a time."

"Clint first," Natasha suggested. "He's more likely to accept, and less prone to sulking."

Pepper nodded, albeit with a hint of trepidation. This was one hell of a gamble, when you got down to it. "You willing to talk to him about this, Natasha?"

The smile that brought to Natasha's face was slow, and held more than a hint of deadly danger. "That shouldn't be a problem. We were casual for a while, back when we were both still relatively new at SHIELD. I have to warn you now, though. He's more likely to go for Tony than either of us."

Tony blinked. "Huh. Okay. I can work with that."

Pepper pursed her lips for a moment. "Right, okay. You don't have to confirm or deny, but I'm going to speculate," she told Natasha, "that Clint is bi with a preference for men, where you are bi with a preference for women."

"That won't matter if he turns us down," Tony pointed out.

Natasha simply smiled enigmatically. Pepper was fairly sure she'd guessed correctly. "If he does the unexpected and turns us down, Tony," she put in, tone tart, "you still have us to contend with."

"That's not what I--" he tried to protest.

Natasha pulled Tony out of Pepper's arms and gave him a push toward the bed that made him stumble, "I don't appreciate the implication that we would just leave if Clint says no," she added, stalking after him, "whether you meant it or not."

Pepper followed. "You make a persuasive argument. Maybe it's time we reminded him of that."


	7. Chapter 7

Pepper missed the conversation between Clint and Natasha the next morning. She'd climbed blearily out of bed early, forced to go to one of the many meetings she'd put off over the past week and a half, and let the hot water of the shower just wash over her until JARVIS called time.

Breakfast had been a bagel and a mug of coffee. She hadn't felt awake enough to try for anything more complicated. At least it was only the one big meeting, and she could do most of the rest remotely from the penthouse.

And now the Board was expecting her to pull a miracle out of her ass. Just after they'd started the meeting, a report had come in that a critical piece of factory floor equipment had broken down on the Tokyo campus, and unless it was back up in under six hours, the rest of the assembly lines would have to be shut down until it was repaired, potentially costing the company millions. And, naturally, it had gone down right at the end of the swing shift, meaning that there was no way to call the company they'd contracted for repairs for about five hours. And so, here she was, on the phone with the man in charge of the Tokyo facility's production lines, in front of the Board, who hadn't bothered to clear the room for the call or made a move to let her leave to take the call in relative privacy.

Politics.

Pepper resisted the urge to pinch the bridge of her nose. "Have they pinpointed the problem?"

"No, Ma'am," the foreman replied, his expression frustrated. "It seems to just be throwing generic errors, but a simple shut down and restart isn't affecting the issue."

"I'll see what I can do from here. Keep me updated."

"Of course. Thank you, Ma'am," he bowed and ended the call.

Pepper bit back a sigh and sent off a couple of texts. One to Tony -- _Tony, do me a favor and get to Tokyo, asap. Technical difficulties on the factory floor._ , and one to Natasha -- _Technical issues in Tokyo. Make sure Tony gets his ass over there, pronto. Tell him to take the suit._

Finished, she lifted her head and gave the members of the Board an arch look. "Now. Where were we?"

Clint appeared unobtrusively in the corner of the room a few minutes later, and settled in to wait. She could tell that his presence intimidated some of the Board members, but couldn't bring herself to care. If they wanted to let the presence of an Avenger freak them out, there wasn't much she could do about it anyway. Rather than worry about it, Pepper moved on to the next item on the agenda. "So, as you all will have read in your briefing packets, the green energy pilot project based on our proprietary arc reactor technology that Mr. Stark and I proposed six months ago has passed its inspection with flying colors, bringing it from proof-of-concept to working prototype status. As such, I would like to reclassify the project and open it to the R&D departments for fine-tuning and mass production analyses."

An hour and a half after she'd first received the call from Tokyo's foreman, as the meeting was finally winding down, she got another. "Ma'am," the foreman bowed with a pleased expression he couldn't quite hide under a bland mien, "I am pleased to report that with the assistance of Stark-kaichou the defect has been repaired. Production will resume shortly."

"Thank you, Mikigawa-san," Pepper smiled. It was obvious that there was no question in anyone's mind that Tony's presence there as a glorified repairman had been her doing, but it appeared that no one was about to bring it up. "Your consistent efforts on our behalf are appreciated."

A few pleasantries later, the call was wrapped up. None of the Board members commented, though Pepper could see that a few had well-hidden sour expressions. Old guard, most of them. From Obie's time.

She had plans to replace them one by one, but, she reflected, perhaps that would be best done sooner rather than later.

"And, I believe that wraps up today's meeting, unless anyone has any other concerns they'd like to bring to our attention." A few of Obie's old cronies looked like they wanted to speak up but didn't quite dare. After a beat, Pepper nodded. "This meeting is concluded, then. Thank you for your time, gentlemen and lady."

With the meeting officially over, the members of the Board hurriedly filed out. Only the youngest member, James McCleary, and the lone woman, Madeline Brightweather, stopped to say a proper goodbye to her. 

Once the room was empty, Pepper rolled her eyes and turns to Clint. "Well, now that that's over... coffee?"

The question got her a slightly distracted nod, and a "sure".

That was a surprisingly calm reaction, Pepper tried to catch his eyes, failed, and led the way back to the elevator with a mental shrug. They rode it up to the penthouse common level and she took the opportunity to settle Clint in the kitchen. "Stay put while I find something more comfortable to wear," she told him in her firmest Tony Voice, "I'll be right back."

Clint waved her off, and all but wrapped himself bodily around the coffee machine.

Pepper gave up with an amused snort and left him to it. She had no more meetings for the rest of the morning, so she made the quick trip up to their shared bedroom and took off her power suit in favor of her favourite pair of cut-offs, then armed herself with the requisite supplies they would need if they decided to take things to a physical level. By the time she'd reappeared in more casual clothes, Clint had made coffee, unable to resist its allure, and was sitting at the breakfast bar with a mug. His hands were wrapped around it, and Pepper couldn't help but notice their strength again.

They sipped their coffee in silence for a while, until Clint broke it. "So does this have anything to do with that conversation I had with 'Tasha this morning? 'Cause if it does, I have to warn you that my hearing aids went out halfway through that meeting."

Well. That explained some of Clint's odd non-reactions to her statements. Pepper nodded.

Clint made a face and stood. "Okay. Give me a minute," he requested.

Five minutes later, he reappeared, and picked up his mug. A swig had him making a face and whining. "Aww, coffee."

"I'm going to assume you can hear me again," Pepper asked, catching his eyes. She was successful, this time.

"Yeah," he gave her a skeptical look. "Look, Nat didn't want to answer when I asked her. Will you?"

Now that was deliberately vague. "Answer what?" Pepper prodded him.

"Why the hell would you want to add an ex-carnie SHIELD agent to your arrangement?" Clint asked bluntly.

Huh. Pepper considered for a moment. That was more insecurity than she would have expected from a man who'd clawed his way out of poverty and right up into the uppermost echelons of a government organisation. And was possibly the best sharp shooter in the world, right now. "Well," she began, choosing her words carefully, "let me put it this way. Tony's interested, and Natasha already knows that the two of you can coexist in a relationship. I'm not entirely sure that bringing you in will work out, but I'm willing to give it a shot. I like you, and all three of us trust you."

"Great, wonderful," Clint agreed, with a sarcastic tone, then continued. "That doesn't answer the question."

Fine, he wanted blunt? She could do that. "Alright. Look. I don't know what you're thinking, and I'm pretty sure I don't want to," she started, and Clint huffed an amused breath into his coffee. "What I do know is that you're loyal, attractive, and that both my lovers are interested in you. They think bringing you in would be fun for all of us, and that you'd be willing. I trust their judgment, and I concur." Pepper took a breath and added with a smirk, "and you're a stubborn enough son of a bitch to be able to deal with Tony. That's a big plus, in my books."

Clint laughed. "Alright, let's pretend I've agreed. What happens?"

Pepper let the smirk take on a lascivious edge. "The fun part. I have a bad habit of getting possessive. So we'll have to experiment and see how I feel about seeing you in bed with Tony or Natasha. But, above all, before anything else happens, there will be a discussion on kinks, soft limits, and hard limits."

That got a slow nod. "Alright," he repeated, "I can work with that. You want to see where this goes?"

"Don't you?" Pepper shot back, settling herself on the stool next to him at the breakfast bar. "Where would you like to start?"

Clint blinked. "What? Now?"

"Why not? Our rule is that we try things out one-on-one first, before attempting anything in a group setting," Pepper informed him. "And since Tony's not here, that leaves us with some time to get to know one another."

"In the usual sense, or a more biblical one," he asked drily.

"Either." Pepper shrugged, then offered, "both, if you want. Discussion first."

\------

It hadn't taken long to cover the basics. Clint turned out to be relatively vanilla in his tastes, Pepper had been amused to note. He liked the thrill of being in semi-public when he had sex, and liked being held down, but that was about the extent of it. He wasn't a big fan of restraints thanks to his job, and anything that deprived him of his senses was a hard limit. Most of the other topics they'd discussed he'd agreed to give a try, but wasn't overly optimistic about enjoying.

Once they'd finished talking, a vaguely awkward silence fell. Clint broke it, blurting out, "wanna watch a movie and make out?"

Pepper laughed, it was very vanilla and innocent, but that was a nice way for them to get used to one another. "Sure. Want popcorn?"

"Popcorn sounds great," he agreed. "The Matrix?"

"Mmmm, I don't know. It's cheesy, but I actually kind of like that movie. Let's put on something we won't care if we miss. Maybe that Micheal Bay Transformers movie?"

Clint raised an eyebrow at her. "The one Tony banned us from ever playing on any screen he owned?"

"That's the one," Pepper replied.

"Why the hell not," Clint laughed. "You mind, JARVIS?"

"Not at all, Agent Barton," the AI replied.

Pepper walked out of the room to the sound of an argument over whether or not Clint should be addressed with his full title at all times. She could have told Clint he'd lose that argument; everyone else had already. Including Tony.

She checked her watch, reminded of his absence. Tony wouldn't be back for at least another hour, by her estimation, and Steve usually did... whatever he did, during the day, so odds were good that they wouldn't be interrupted. Well, Pepper amended the thought as she threw a bag of popcorn into the microwave, except by Natasha, or any of the million and twelve random emergencies that cropped up in their lives.

Setting the thought aside, she pulled a large bowl down from one of the cupboards and waited for the popcorn to finish popping. Despite all her reservations, she realised, she was looking forward to this. To initiating a lot more than just a make-out session once they ran out of popcorn.

They only made it through the title sequence without making a move.

At that point, Pepper got impatient, and trailed her fingers up Clint's forearm, lingering in the crook of his elbow. He turned, his mouth opening, but just closed it again wordlessly when his eyes met hers. It was interesting. She could almost see the fire kindle in them as he accepted that, yes, she did in fact mean it when she said she was willing.

His hand came up, a beat later, to cup her cheek and hook his fingers around her ear, sending her hair tumbling free as he pulled her in for a first cautious kiss.

It was... odd. She was used to Tony, who was all over the place when he kissed, touching, caressing, grinding against her, or Natasha, who kissed like she fought, fast and deadly. Clint was... different. He was much more focused and purposeful than either of her current partners, deliberate in the way he had on the range, she decided, carefully kissing back. The lack of facial hair was also interesting. Different. His scruff was just rough enough to remind her it was there, and not prickly like Tony's if she moved wrong. Pepper couldn't decide whether she liked that or not, so she set it aside for consideration later, and refocused her attention on what they were doing.

Clint's lips were surprisingly soft and tasted lightly of chapstick under the lingering notes of butter, salt, and coffee, to her amusement. The way he kissed belied that, though, his actions firmly confident. He was willing to adapt to what she liked, once she showed him, and that was a mark in his favour, Pepper decided; he learned quickly.

When they broke apart for air, Pepper reached out to wrap her hand around his deltoid and push until he got the idea, shifting to lie sprawled across the sofa cushions. She followed, leaning over him, and supporting herself on one elbow. Her other hand drifted back to his upper arm and traced the lines of the muscles there. "Mmm, nice," she hummed.

"Thanks," Clint replied drily, "I work out."

"I'm sure you do," Pepper agreed, and picked up one of his hands in her free one, lifting it up and putting it on her waist. "You're allowed to touch, too, you know."

His hand trailed up her flank and back down, almost hesitantly. "I know."

Pepper wanted to roll her eyes. For fuck's sake. Literally. "Does this make you uncomfortable, Clint?"

"No? I just... I-- it's stupid." He refused to look at her, and his hand fell away again.

"Clint, talk to me," she demanded. "I can't read minds."

"I don't get nice things," he blurted. As soon as the words were out, he closed his eyes, looking miserable. "Or, I don't get to keep 'em, anyway."

"Clint," she replied, "open your eyes."

He resisted, clearly embarrassed, so she tried again, taking his face in her hands. "Clint, Tony's the futurist. He's amazingly good at predicting how things that don't involve him personally will work out; once, in the 90s, he predicted a minor stock market crash that no one else saw coming. But even he's horrible at working out what's going happen in a relationship. Not long after we got together, he freaked out thinking that I was going to leave over something that hadn't happened yet, that the futurist in him insisted was going to happen, like it or not, and did his best to hide away in the workshop for almost a week. Eventually, he ran out of coffee and came back out." Pepper made a face. "I almost dumped him right then, for hiding and not talking to me." Clint made an aborted movement that Pepper suspected was a nod. "Say what else you will about him, he learns quickly. After that, he freaked out on me about similar things a few more times, but he didn't go hiding again. After the fifth time, he even managed to come talk to me about it." She paused for a beat. "Getting my point?"

This time Clint did nod.

She let go, and he tentatively put his hands back where they had been. Pepper nodded. "Good."

"I guess now's the time to ask how far you intend to go before we involve the others," Clint said after a moment, and his hands started wandering.

When his strong fingers hit the sensitive spot under her shoulderblade, Pepper sighed and pushed into the touch. "How far are you willing to go?"

"Out here?" Clint raised an eyebrow at her.

"If you want," Pepper shot back, as Clint's wandering hands slid lower, one catching on the dip of her lower back, and the other roaming down her side until he reached her ass. She watched him consider it for a moment before he shook his head. 

"Not the first time. You were right about getting to know each others' responses. We'll do that another time."

"Do you want to adjourn to the bedroom, then?" Pepper asked, letting a bit of anticipation color her tone.

Clint smirked. "I could be persuaded."

She suddenly wanted to see a lot more of the expressions he kept hidden from the world at large. "What would it take to persuade you?"

"I'd say 'a gold-embossed invitation', but I'm sure you could make that happen," he snarked, "so let's just say that I'm open to suggestions."

Pepper pretended to consider. "Well, the bedroom has a bed. And various supplies."

Clint laughed. "I'm sold."

The movie shut off automatically behind them as they left the room, not that she was paying much attention to that. Clint had caught her by the waist after a few steps, making her stumble and laugh. In retaliation, she reached back and grabbed his shirt as they reached the bedroom door and used the leverage she had to bodily haul him through it and sling him toward the bed.

He let her, laughing. Sitting down on the edge of the mattress, he asked, "what do you want out of this?"

Pepper smiled, letting it take on a dark suggestive edge. "I intend to lay you out and ride you until I come," she replied, pulling the condom out of her pocket to hold it between her first two fingers, like a playing card. "And if you come first, you'd better be prepared to use your tongue." She looked him over from head to toe, then demanded, "strip."

He raised an eyebrow at her, but stood long enough to remove his button-down and jeans. It left him in a pair of plain blue -- and very thin -- boxers that did nothing to hide his reaction to her. "Well, I've heard worse plans," he quipped, settling on the bed again, and stretching out on his back, with his hands behind his head.

He was showing off for her. Pepper was pretty sure she looked pleased with herself. "That's better. Stay right there."

She shed her own clothes, dropping them on the floor and not caring where they landed. Pausing to pull the lube out of the nightstand, Pepper edged onto the bed and settled her weight on his thighs, just above his knees. When Clint didn't move, she raised an eyebrow at him. "You know, when I said you should stay put, that didn't necessarily include your hands."

"What can I say," he shrugged, "I've learned to extrapolate. Does that mean you want my hands elsewhere?"

That was an obvious tease, wrapped up in a challenge. Pepper laughed. "Why not. Show me how good you are with your fingers."

It was his turn to look pleased. "Alright. Come a little closer, then."

Going down onto her hands and knees, Pepper complied, resettling herself when they were nose-to-nose. She was just slightly taller, so his hard cock was caught between their stomachs when she lowered herself onto him, plastering them together from chest to groin. It felt nice, and she was sure he liked it too, judging by the stifled thrust of his hips.

He caught her eyes a moment before his hands came into contact with her skin. The touch made her jump, itching to have those strong calloused fingers elsewhere.

"On a hair trigger, are you?" Clint joked, amused.

"Well, with the way you're all talk, that's not exactly a surprise," she shot back.

Sliding his hands around her flanks to her shoulderblades, then down, and down, until they were cupping her ass, he ground up against her. "You in a hurry?"

"Not usually, but you're just--" her sentence cut off when one of his hands slipped down between her legs to touch and stroke.

"Mmm, sensitive." Clint observed. "How do you want it?"

"Get your fingers in me, would you?" Pepper tried to push back against his hand, wrapping her hands around his upper arms for leverage, and only got another teasing brush of fingers in response.

"I dunno," he replied. "I'm kind of enjoying this. Might have to try this again later." His fingers dipped in just enough to touch her entrance. "Maybe I'll ask Tony to hold you down for me, so I can take my time properly, next time."

Pepper bit her lip at the mental image that generated. "You're assuming there will be a next time," she said with a hint of a growl in her voice. "If you don't get on with it, there might not be."

Clint snorted, but gave in to her demands, partially. "I doubt that."

Pepper ground down on the single finger he'd pushed into her, letting her head fall forward until her forehead rested on his sternum. "But are you willing to take the chance?"

"Hmm," he pretended to consider that, as he pulled his finger free just long enough to add a second. "Well, I guess not. I'll wait until you're not expecting it, and then I'll make my move."

She let herself just enjoy the feeling of the stretch for a moment without lifting her head. "That so?"

"It is," Clint added a third finger, making her hips thrust back without her conscious decision. "I can be very patient when I want to."

Pepper wasn't sure if that sounded more like a threat or a promise. Another thrust of Clint's fingers distracted her, sending a jolt through her. She was starting to properly lose patience with the way he was making her wait, and it was enough impetus to get her moving. Moving slowly enough not to dislodge Clint's fingers, Pepper pushed herself upright.

It had the effect of prompting Clint to bring his free hand around to tease at her clit, and distracted her from her goal for a moment. Once she had coherent thought back, Pepper reached over to the nightstand for the lube and condom.

Clint never missed a beat even when she began rolling the condom onto him and working him with her hand once it was on.

"Ready for the next act," Pepper asked him. 

"Bring it on," he smirked at her.

She couldn't let that little display of spirit go unacknowledged; Pepper reached behind her to grab his wrist and hold it steady as she shifted forward, off his fingers. He let her, holding her eyes as she moved. Reaching down with her other hand to steady him as she lined herself up, Pepper brought the hand in hers up to her mouth. "Yes?"

"Fuck, yes."

Pepper huffed, amused. "That was the idea." Keeping her grip on his cock, Pepper let herself sink down slowly and took his first two fingers into her mouth as she moved. Clint's other hand flew to her hip, helping her balance, and he moaned high in his throat. It almost qualified as a squeak, Pepper noted, with a smug smirk. She started twining her tongue between and around the fingers in her mouth, licking the taste of herself off them. It pulled another louder moan out of Clint, and got her a thrust of his hips that nearly sent her sprawling forward onto his chest.

She straightened with a giggle, and let go of his wrist in favour of bracing herself against the fronts of his shoulders. A beat later, he pulled his fingers out of her mouth, and trailed them down to draw circles around her nipple. "Clint," she gasped, "come on, show me what you've got."

When he grabbed her nipple between thumb and forefinger in response, pinching lightly, it was her turn to squeak and up the ante; she dug her nails just lightly into skin and muscle and drew her hands the length of his torso, leaving eight red lines. When she reached the point where her skin met his, she didn't stop, sliding one hand down to tease at the root of him, where his cock disappeared into her, and using the other to roll her clit between her fingers. It made her inner muscles clench around him, and suddenly she felt every inch of him. She still wanted more, though.

"Pepper! Fuck," was all he managed to grit out between his teeth. He let go of her nipple, then, in favour of massaging her entire breast, rolling it in his hand, and letting his calluses catch on her skin.

"Oh!" It felt wonderful. For all that it was such a small thing, it was enough to push her over the edge, and she came hard, her muscles going taut until she trembled under the force. 

Clint made a wounded noise, but managed to hold on long enough to pull a couple of nice aftershocks out of her before he came too.

Sated, Pepper let herself fall forward until she was sprawled half over his torso and half over the now thoroughly mussed covers.

Clint chuckled lowly. "Well, damn. Are you three always that intense in bed?"

Pepper smiled and kept her silence, choosing not to answer. He'd find out for himself soon enough.

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End file.
